Music

Music & Culture

'Desired Effect' Reveals How Important Family Is To Rocker Brandon Flowers

3:47pm May 26, 2015

Brandon Flowers is the frontman for the band the Killers, and he makes his own music in between albums his group puts out. David Greene talks to Flowers about his new solo album: "The Desired Effect."

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Music & Culture

Revisiting The Crystal Clarity Created By The 'Decca Sound' Revolution

2:40pm May 26, 2015

by Lloyd Schwartz

In the 1940s, recording engineers perfected new sound techniques that were used in World War II — and which launched a hi-fi revolution. Lloyd Schwartz reviews the new 53-CD Decca box set.

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One of the record presses on the floor at the Quality Record Pressings plant in Salina, Kan.

Music & Culture

Solving The Vinyl Comeback's Big Problem, One Antique Machine At A Time

11:15am May 24, 2015

by C.J. Janovy

What's getting in the way of the much touted resurgence of vinyl albums? There are very few functioning record presses, and nobody's making new ones.

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The members of ABBA (from left): Bjorn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Faltskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson at Waterloo station in London in 1974, the year the group won the Eurovision contest with the song "Waterloo."

Music & Culture

ABBA's Essential, Influential Melancholy

8:03am May 23, 2015

by Barry Walters

A defense of the monumental, enduring, deceptively complex Swedish pop quartet, and the underlying emotion that has helped its hooks connect with fans for generations.

The Curse Of Lil B: Fans Blame Rapper For Houston Rockets' Bad Luck

8:32pm May 22, 2015

The Houston Rockets lost their second game in the Western Conference Finals Thursday night. Many fans believe rapper Lil B placed a curse on the team's best player, James Harden.

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'My Fair Lady' Couldn't Actually Dance All Night, So These Songs Had To Go

7:17pm May 20, 2015

by Bob Mondello

The musical has some of the best-known songs in Broadway history, but it originally had other tunes that almost no one knows. Some of those songs were recently performed for the first time in decades.

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Bruce Lundvall attends a ceremony hosted by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which produces the Grammy Awards. In addition to his role as record executive, he also once served as director of the Recording Academy.

Music & Culture

Bruce Lundvall, Jazz Record Executive, Has Died

6:06pm May 20, 2015

by Patrick Jarenwattananon

The longtime president of Blue Note Records, a lifelong jazz fan, signed artists such as Norah Jones, Joe Henderson and Robert Glasper. He died of complications due to Parkinson's Disease. He was 79.

Music & Culture

In 'Take Off,' Ramon Valle Makes The Piano Sing

5:36pm May 18, 2015

by Kevin Whitehead

Despite its clarity and cohesion, Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says the new album from Cuban pianist Ramon Valle and his trio is half knock-out, half schmaltzy.

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Arts

Looking Back at the Success of an Inaugural Student-Run Music Festival

12:32pm May 18, 2015

Epileptic strobe lights. Hazy smoke. Reggae keyboardists swayed in time to Jamaican-inspired beats, their dreadlocks tapping the floor.

Sam Swiller and his dog, Sully, in their home in Washington, D.C.

Deaf Jam: Experiencing Music Through A Cochlear Implant

12:16pm May 18, 2015

by Jon Hamilton

After swapping hearing aids for a cochlear implant, Sam Swiller's taste in music shifted dramatically, from grunge rock to folk. Now scientists are trying to improve how implants relay music.

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